At the end of a brief break from writing, I lick the last tangy drop of soup from my index finger, set my empty bowl next to the sink, and looks over the aftermath of my home-cooked supper. In a rusting colander, loosely curled ribbons of purple-white turnip peel wrap themselves around a clump of discarded kale spines. Near the back burner of the stove, round seeds from a yellow wax pepper float like flattened coracles on a stream of spilled heirloom tomato juice. At the bottom of my foraging basket, blackened hemlock needles cling to the trimmed-off stipes of golden chanterelle mushrooms. The still-life imagery describes perfectly what I love best about food: humble ingredients and simple preparations which – eschewing artificiality – celebrate the sustainable traditions of the past.
Wiping off the kitchen countertop with a calico towel, I wonder how much of what I love will be retained in our collective culinary future. Will time-honored food traditions prove their durability and relevance in a world which purports to reject such traditions as anachronistic and unworthy of preservation? Or will they slowly disappear, replaced by food products and standards which politicians, bio-tech corporations, petro-farmers, and fast-food empires agree are best for the modern age? The question makes me uneasy. And yet – buoyed by the knowledge that my desires for a simpler, more tradition-based future are shared by a growing number of visionary thinkers, producers, agriculturalists, and culinarians – I see good reason to believe that what I love may flourish in the years and decades to come. Spontaneously, I pick up a scrap of paper and scribble down the names of a few of those who give me hope.
Carlo Petrini – Italian author of Slow Food: Collected Thoughts on Taste, Tradition, and the Honest Pleasures of Food – whose International Slow Food Movement continues to draw attention to the endangered culinary traditions of the past while warning of the pitfalls which attend our deepening fixation on soul-less foods.
Josko Gravner – iconoclastic Friulian vintner – whose commitment to creating and marketing wines made with millennia-old techniques gives the equivalent of a stiff middle-finger to those slick oenological modernists who prefer laboratories and stainless steel to vineyards and clay amphorae.
The late Masanobu Fukuoka – reformed Japanese microbiologist – whose fieldwork and writings on the subject of natural farming continue to resonate and inspire small-scale farmers and home-gardeners with the radical idea that sustainable agriculture sustainably producing sustainable food is essential to a sustainable humanity.
Alice Waters – American chef, author, and educator – whose writings, educational endeavors, and legendary restaurant Chez Panisse, continue to play a visionary role in the burgeoning subculture of those who hold that what we eat should be simple, enjoyable, healthy, and locally produced.
Setting down my quick-jotted notes, I crack a wide smile and feel a new confidence in what will be. Though I can’t deny corporate power, the allure of novel creations, and the global trend toward choosing what nourishes us on the basis of how quickly it may be prepared and eaten, I sense that we are nearing the apogee of what posterity will likely view as a flawed push to reduce whole foods to mere products and formulas. Soon – I believe – we’ll come to a collective realization that preserving and promoting the simple yet richly satisfying food traditions of the past is in our best interest.
Feeling vaguely self-satisfied with the direction of my thoughts, I move from the corner of the kitchen, intending to sit down at the typewriter and commit my ideas to paper. Easing myself into my cushioned chair, I hear springs squawking as the screen-door swings open and shut, tiny tippy-tappy footsteps on the wooden floor boards, and a little girl’s quiet laugh behind me. An instant later, my daughter’s hand reaches over my shoulder and drops a ripe yellow apple onto my lap. Picking it up, I smile, remembering the ripe apples of my own childhood. Rubbing its oxidized skin shiny on the hem of my shirt, I sink my teeth in, taste its sweet juice cool from the evening air and smile again.
“This,” I mumble while chewing slowly. “This is what the future is all about…”
Parked before the sturdy yellow steel forest-road gate which never seems to open anymore, I leave the engine running as I slip the barrel of the old .410 into its rust-pocked receiver. The air coming through the vents is warm, smells just slightly of burnt oil, and feels good on my fingers. Somehow, the drumming of the raindrops and the tick-click of what I suspect is hot exhaust through a cracked manifold fall into a loose rhythm. Sliding the wooden forestock into place against the base of the barrel, I remember watching my father’s hand show me this motion as he taught me how to put together the little Springfield crack-barrel when I was just a boy. Feeling at home where I am, I pause to breathe, to listen to the sound of my heartbeat in my ears, to notice the goodness of now.
The new venture in writing begins with the familiar tapping of keys. It feels good to be writing as myself again, to be focusing on what is real and present. I want to say something – perhaps an idea that will inspire – but nothing much comes to mind.